How things are going...

Well it's ever so late, but I feel so behind with making notes on "things" here lately, and I don't want everything to disappear out of my memory without a record to back it up, further down the line! So I will be quick:

* On Monday I put Matthew in Big Boy Pants in the day time to start officially potty training him! On Thursday I put him back in nappies without a backward glance! ;) He is NOT ready, suffice to say! I guess I am surprised because Arthur was exactly the same age (yes, I know they are different children, but still) and he did it pretty much without ANY involvement from me and was done and dusted within 5 days. Also he is already 3. But, he is not ready. He peed and pooed on the carpet and sofa continually throughout the four days. Well, I say pooed - he did do his first ever poo in the potty but not enthusiastically, and then there was a "p.s" afterwards while I was emptying out the main job upstairs, which he tried to clean off the carpet by scooping it into the underside of a Duplo brick (it is in the bin!) and then wiping with tissues which he trailed into the porch, and THEN wiping his hands on Nathan's tummy!! I didn't even notice the brown finger marks on Nathey's vest until about 30 minutes after the big clean-up. I automatically went to change his top, presuming the marks to be chocolate, and it took me a few moments to realise that I had not given him any chocolate (nor do I normally!)! Yeeuuurrgh. Matthew's simple response to the obvious question was that he did it to get his hands clean. Of course! ;)

Matthew doesn't seem to wee and then NOT wee for a while, and then empty his bladder fully again. He will do a little bit and say he's done, and then not THREE minutes later he will wee in his clothes just standing on the carpet, apparently oblivious. He can always "perform" with a little wee, and he never sits on the potty and relaxes and just wees. He always makes a big deal straining to produce a little bit of wee to show me he's done it. I tried reminding him every 20 minutes, sitting him on the potty every 20 minutes, putting him in just big boy pants, just pyjama-style trousers with no underwear (wet legs, therefore - better awareness?), and just nothing on his lower half at all. He did not improve at all over the 4 days (I know it was only 4 days, but still), in fact he seemed to be getting worse if anything. I was also getting a little concerned that he was holding his poo. He's a daily boy and out of those 4 days he only went on Day 2. On Day 3 I felt pretty sure he needed to go at one point, but he denied it and refused to try, so he didn't do one that day. After the TENTH wee accident on Day 4 (by late morning!), I finally just put a nappy on him. I explained that I wasn't cross and he hadn't done anything wrong. He was still a big boy just as much, but I wanted HIM to tell me when HE was ready, and then we'd get right back to it. He did a poo not 3 minutes later. He hasn't batted an eyelid since going back in nappies, or seemed unsettled or unhappy about it, or asked questions. He just carries right on, and I for one am hugely relieved to let the potty training go for a bit longer. It was getting a bit stressful to deal with it alongside two little ones under two, and getting school ready for Arthur! It will be MUCH easier when he's actually ready, I think. I don't know when that will be, but I guess I'll aim to try him again at 3 and a half, in a few more months. Unless he initiates it before then. I have only just caught up with the crazy laundry that was the result of the potty training attempt! I have a lot more time again now that he's back in nappies - I was forever reminding, emptying 1.5ml of urine out of potties, cleaning wee, etc, before!

* Nathan is saying everything! Everything. All of a sudden, just like his brothers did. He started later than average like his brothers, but from experience I knew he would just take off when he got started. I can't think of anything (casting my eye around the room) that he doesn't point at and name accurately. His pronounciation is coming along just in the last week. For example, he has started adding the end consonant to many words this week. For the first couple of weeks (he has only really been saying words for a couple of weeks!) he would point to a bike and say "bah" or a duck and say "dah". Now he is saying "bah..ccKK!" hehe! Or "du...ccccKKKK!" to really emphasise the K sound on the end, hehehe! It's so sweet - he almost leaves a pause between the first and second syllable for added emphasis. I have been emphasising the end syllables clearly to him this last week and he has been watching my mouth intently as I've done so. It's sweet to see him really pick that up and say it back to me clearly. He is forever trailing Arthur around the room saying, "Atha, Atha, Athaaa?" repeatedly - poor Arthur! ;) Arthur is dealing with it very well, and loves the attention. Nathan has always adored Arthur but now he is really able to demonstrate that verbally! ;)

* Nathan started running this week! He has been doing an almost-there bumpity race-walk for what seems to me like months (I'm sure it's at least 3 months), but never tipped into real running in the process. Now he's suddenly running, overnight. His sweet little legs blur past each other because he runs fast but in the tiniest little steps, hehe! So sweet! He runs with an enormous smile on his face all the time, because he's so thrilled. When he breaks the smile it's only to call out, "Ruh, ruh, ruuuuhhh!" as he runs along, to tell us joyfully that he is running! :) He says Mummy in such an incredibly cute helium-chipmunky sort of way that it sounds like a squished up "Mami" when he says it, and I ADORE hearing it. Adore it. Can't get enough of it. He's such a treasure (which I tell him often!).

* I'm planning, planning, planning all the time at the moment for school. The table and chairs arrived this week, and they're set up (I'm sitting at it rather uncomfortably on one of the LOW chairs as I type this! Neil is reclining on the sofa and we only have one now - but I love the new table and chairs so I'll take a little discomfort to enjoy sitting at them anyway!). The boys LOVE them! I have photos, but they're still on the camera at the moment. Smaller items to complete the school area are nearly sorted out. Two are on their way, having been ordered. Two or three are left to choose and purchase still, but I'm wading my way through options (there are too many rugs out there to choose easily, and I'm picky!) and will order those this weekend hopefully, to arrive during the week.

The Right Start Mathematics curriculum unfortunately got stopped at customs (tsk!) so it's delayed. I have paid the (hefty!) fee and it should be delivered on Monday now, which I'm soooooooo excited about! I am going to order Math Mammoth this weekend too, the download form, so that it's with us immediately.

Okay so that paragraph made me want to do it RIGHT NOW, so I have done it! I just bought the download version of Math Mammoth Grade 1 (the complete curriculum - 1A and 1B) - yay! Now I am having trouble opening the zip file, tsk! But there's a place I can go to get help with that, apparently, so that's okay. I'll work on that tomorrow. [ETA: Woohoo, it worked! :) ]

It being weekend, I have taken advantage of Benjamin's naps today to try to plan out the school week a bit better, while Neil's home to look after the little ones. Benjamin has taken 3 short naps and one longer nap today, and each time he goes to sleep, I shut myself in the bedroom with him and sit on the bed with my pad of paper and pen, and the laptop. And various books that I'll be using to teach Arthur. I have planned out which subjects he'll be learning, and what we'll be doing on each day of the week, and which order we'll do things in. I think we'll be doing school between 9am and 11am, but that allows a lot of extra time for distractions, discipline and interruptions, related to the other boys! I hope we won't have much distraction, but I need to be flexible. School should last about an hour, and in that time we'll do Bible study followed by reading and letter formation, followed by maths. The Bible study we are doing is going to be from the book "Leading Little Ones to God" (after MUCHO research), which will take about 10 minutes. It's a bit of teaching (lovely, lovely teaching, by the look of it so far!), a Bible verse relating to the teaching, then singing a hymn (none of which I know or have access to, so I'll replace them with ones that we know from our church with a similar theme), and a prayer at the end.

Arthur has done 37 lessons (I think!) out of the book "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons", so we'll continue with that for his reading and letter formation. Each lessons takes somewhere around 15 minutes (10 in the beginning, and sometimes 20 minutes in Arthur's last few lessons). I'm also going to do a bit of simple copywork with him as part of Nature Study, which we'll do on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Will write more about the specifics another time.

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we will do Right Start maths (I have no idea how long a session is till I get the curriculum on Monday and start reading it, but I'm guessing not a long time), and then on Tuesday and Thursday we'll do Math Mammoth, which I'll try to arrange (if necessary) so that it ties in with what we are doing in Right Start maths.

On Mondays we'll do a chapter of "A Child's Book of Character Building" (again with the mucho research). I will then write up the character trait (virtue) we're learning for the week and display it in the school area, and I am thinking a chart with gold stars for every time I notice the boys exhibit that trait during the week. Or something like that! Still fine tuning my thoughts on that one! Matthew will be involved in Bible Time and Character Building, but not reading or maths for now. If he's eager I will give him some worksheets to help him with letter and number formation or blocks to count and sort at the table with us. Otherwise he will have his Active World Tray (they arrived, yayness!) and an "only for school" educational toy or two to explore on the floor behind us, while Arthur and I do school. I am REALLY hoping Nathan continues to want both a morning and afternoon nap for a while longer! He is already in the minority of children his age who still take 2 naps a day, but I need him to just carry on a little bit longer so that I can establish the school routine (and expectations) with Arthur and Matthew! Once he is not napping at school time, he will be difficult to train, although I must do it all the same. So I hope he gives us a little time to get things established!

Anyway, what else? I am going to be doing a proper drawing instruction lesson (realistic drawing skills) from the book, "Drawing with Children". Thanks so much Aisling for signing my comments a couple of weeks ago with the link to Jill's homeschooling blog! I read as much as I could in one go, and was really inspired by her review of the Drawing with Children book (or method, rather). So I researched the book a bit further and bought it after what I read! I have to actually work through the book myself and teach MYSELF to draw first, before I start teaching my children, which I didn't expect! But it's okay, I'm eager to try it! I want to hurry and do that so that I can get ready to teach it. Arthur is nearly 5 so he's ready for drawing instruction (according to the book). I don't think Matthew will be, because only a few 3-year-olds are, but he can do the visual exercises and I'll start with him next year.

And I think that's it. We'll do "unit studies" throughout the year on basically anything Arthur is interested in learning, for example dinosaurs, steam trains, the water cycle, etc. Stuff he's already expressed an interest in. If we do dinosaurs, for example, we can take a whole month, or just a week or two, and do activities relating to it where we find time (or energy, in my case!). We can read books on dinosaurs, research online, draw and colour dinosaurs, do arts and crafts (collage and so on) to do with dinosaurs, bake dinosaur cookies, etc. That's just off the top of my head, so I'm sure there are lots more things we could do for each unit study that Arthur requests! I am not planning any unit studies. So far I am thinking to wing it with that, unless it becomes obvious that I need to schedule them in every fortnight or month, to keep up with Arthur's interests. We'll see how we go.

We will be starting homeschooling officially on Monday 28th September - a week on Monday!! I want a full week to digest all the stuff I've bought to teach with, and finish planning, before starting. Arthur knows that's when we'll start and he's really excited! He is bugging me to start NOW all the time. I am beginning to think it might be a good idea to do "practise school" through this next week, to get them used to it, and to train Matthew up a bit with the Activity Tray (ie. "no noise with your mouth" and not coming off the tray during school time). I think I will do simple stuff like pre-school worksheets, arts and crafts, and simple maths manipulatives. We have already done some of this since the table and chairs arrived - Arthur is working his way through the work cards that go with the the coloured wooden cubes and enjoying that, and Matthew is colour sorting with the same cubes. Nathan even loves getting involved once he's up from his nap. I wish I had put the photos onto the computer already, tsk! Oh well - soon.

I also plan to do more read-aloud story times with books outside their age range, and poetry too. We have already started looking into Suzuki piano lessons (and possibly violin, but we are thinking piano to start with) for both Arthur and Matthew. I read up about the Suzuki method and I'm reeeeeally impressed. My dad is very impressed with it also (he's a musician/composer) and is keen for the boys to do something like that. Also swimming lessons, but I haven't got my head around those things just yet! Still plenty to think about and plan and do! It's just finding the time to organise my thoughts and research things! It's all soooo exciting though! I'm surprised HOW exciting it is. I'm really eager to start homeschooling Arthur now! We re-joined Education Otherwise and I'm hoping to find local contacts and groups through there. I have joined the regional Yahoo group so that's the first step.

I have such a lot more to say (as always!) but no time as it's ridiculously late now and I should have been in bed a long time ago! We're going to church tomorrow again - the third week running after our TEN MONTH absence!). Arthur is loving his Sunday school class and Matthew seems perfectly settled in there too, having graduated from creche since we were there last. We currently don't intend to put Nathan and Benjamin in creche. I think we'll look WEIRD for doing that, but I don't care. They won't miss out on a thing. Creche is something I'm increasingly beginning to disagree with. It's a place for parents to put their children so they don't disturb the adults during the sermon. There, the little ones are supervised by not-enough-adults, who chat to each other (as well as watch the little ones of course) and sometimes miss a fall or incident that could (and should) have been prevented. The little ones play with toys (we have those at home) and interact with other little ones, except not very much because they're not at the social interaction stage yet. In any case, my creche-age boys are now part of a fair bunch of little boys at home and have perlenty of opportunity for social interaction and play with other little ones in their own home! So they don't miss out there either. The one thing they do miss out on by us keeping them out of creche is the germs. Last year we were ill every other Sunday due to having picked up a new virus the previous Sunday at creche. This is a recurring rant for me, but it bugs me so very much! People take sick children to creche and it bugs me!

We are currently going to church for the fellowship, the worship, and for the boys to do their Sunday school class that they love so much. We'd love to hear the sermon, but we are not in the least bit bothered (less so each child we have, which is nice actually!) to spend the sermon walking the halls to settle a baby to sleep, or running out in the grounds with our toddler. The baby and toddler have a rare and special time one-on-one with either Mummy or Daddy (we each take a little one) and get to run about (or nap!), which I think is way more special than biding their time in creche catching the latest viruses to spread around our increasingly large family for the next few weeks! The sermons are broadcast online if we want to catch up with them at a later point. I'm sure people are going to start asking us why we are not putting the little ones in creche, and I'm not sure of exactly how to phrase my answer to that without offending (praying on that one!), but we have no intention of putting our children in creche at church at all any more. I am sure Arthur and Matthew will bring home colds and such from just being at Sunday school (Arthur did once or twice last year) but it's not that I refuse to allow anyone to get us sick, just that I don't want to let my toy-mouthing under-2s into a room full of unwell (for the most part, honestly! It's horrid!) toy-mouthing under-2s just for our own convenience, and not remotely for their own benefit! So, that is why. With that mindset we are able to really enjoy spending the time with our two littlest boys during the sermon, which is nice! :)

So, BED!!! Or else I will not be able to enjoy that time tomorrow, because I'll be too exhausted to walk the baby boo or run with Nathey! ;)

P.S. Benjamin is lifting his head right up on his tummy now, and holding it steady to look ahead at his brothers playing if they're close enough to him (which they always are, since they adore him!). He is trying so hard to roll from his back to his tummy, and can almost get over except for his arm in the way as he tries to go from on his side to his tummy. He makes such a lot of cute little effort sounds and the other boys stand around him cheering him on like crazy! Eventually the noise is so distracting that he stops trying and looks around all perplexed, hehe! They LOVE their little Benji :) He is almost laughing, seems to be my most ticklish boy yet (amazingly!), and is starting to outgrow all his 3-6 month sleepsuits and vests!!! He's TEN WEEKS OLD!! Yikes! He fits a few of his 6-9 month sleepsuits really well, even in the arm length. The toes hang off his feet about a couple of cms, that's all! Big boy. He is so delightfully GORGEOUS!! I could eat him. Or just kiss him all day long. His cheeks are wonderous. He is beginning to lose his newborn hair (waaah!). Where he sleeps it looks like a cat has slept there, because lots of little fine hairs remain on the sheet :( When I wash his hair at the sink, little fine hairs line the sink after the water runs out. I guess it's nearly time for my own Great Hair Shed 2009. *sigh* I am not a fan of the postpartum hair issues! ;) These usually start around 3-4 months postpartum for me.

Okay, MUST go! Back soon though, hopefully more photos to catch up next time!